Activities

Young’s is a regional brewer and pub operator that is still run by descendants of the family that took on the London-based business in 1831.

Its pub estate is concentrated in London and the South of England and is a mix of managed houses (including inns with rooms) and tenanted properties.

In October 2006, it will merge its brewing, beer and wholesale activities with those of Charles Wells to create the Bedford-based Wells & Young's Brewing Company, which will be a leading force in the cask ale market.

Young's will contribute the Young's Bitter, Young's Special and Waggledance brands, along with its Cockburn & Campbell wine business.

Charles Wells' s brands include Wells Bombadier, Wells Eagle IPA Bitter, John Bull Bitter and Kestrel Lager. It also has the UK distribution rights for Mexican lager Corona Extra, Jamaican beer Red Stripe Lager and the Japanese Kirin Ichiban beer brand.

Timeline

• 1581: Humphrey Langridge begins brewing beer at the Ram Inn in Wandsworth, London, a prominent inn since 1533.
• 1670: The Ram Brewery passes by marriage into the hands of Somerset Draper and his brother Humphrey.
• 1763: Kent brewer Thomas Tritton buys the Ram Brewery. He buys and leases public houses in Wandswoth, Putney, Clapham, central London, and even Sheerness.
• 1831: Charles Allen Young and his business partner Anthony Fothergill Bainbridge buy the Ram Brewery along with 80 pubs, many of them still in the Young’s estate. Charles Florance Young enters the partnership when his father dies in 1855, and Anthony’s nephew Herbert Bainbridge comes on board in 1873.
• 1883: The Young and Bainbridge partnership is dissolved when Herbert runs off with Charles’s wife. The business is renamed Young & Co.
• 1890: On the death of Charles Young, Young & Co becomes a private limited company called Young & Co’s Brewery Ltd.
• 1955: Young’s floats on the London Stock Exchange.
• 1962: John Allen Young, great-great-grandson of the company’s founder, becomes chairman.
• 1973: The group buys Cockburn & Campbell, wine merchants of London and Edinburgh since 1796 and still part of the group.
• 1990: The group moves into the hotel trade after converting a pub in Greenford, West London, into the Bridge hotel.
• 1991: Young’s buys independent pub operator HH Finch.
• 1999: In May, Young’s opens its first female-friendly bar-restaurant, Finch’s, in Finsbury Square, central London. Although more branches open in Chelmsford in Essex, Wimbledon and Oxford, the chain is subsequently abandoned to leave just the Wimbledon branch.
• November 2000: Young’s buys 17 pubs from Bristol-based Smiles Holdings for £5.8m.
• July 2001: Young’s shareholders reject for the fourth year running  a call from the Guiness Peat Group (which holds 10% of voting shares) to go private.
• May 2005: Young’s simplifies its three-tier share structure and switches from the Stock Exchange to the Alternative Investment Market.
• May 2006: Young's announces plans to merge its brewing, beer brands and wholsale operations with Bedfordshire-based Charles Wells. It will hold a 40% stake in the new company, Wells & Young's Brewing Company, which will begin trading in October from Charles Wells' Eagle brewery in Bedford. At the same time, Young's announces plans to sell its historic Ram brewery and nearby offices in Wandsworth.

Financial snapshot

Full Year
Turnover: £123.9m (2005: £119.5m)
Pre-tax profit: £7.6m* (2005: £9.3m)

* Including exceptional items, pre-tax profit was £10.3m, 1.8% up on the previous year

Half Year
Turnover: £62.5m (2004: £60.9m))
Pre-tax profit: £4.9m (2004: £5m)

Financial year end: 1 April 2006
Half year end: 1 October 2005

Operating data

Figures for the year to 1 April 2006
The managed estate boosted turnover by 3.2%, operating profit by 6.5% and food sales by 10%.
The tenanted estate grew turnover by 0.1% and operating profit by 5.9%

Total number of pubs and inns: 208 (164 freehold)
Number of managed pubs and inns: 112
Number of tenanted pubs: 96
Number of inns: 22, with 326 bedrooms
Number of employees: about 2,000

Strategy

“'We have produced a resilient performance, particularly in retail, in a year of considerable change, which included new licensing laws, our transfer to AIM as well as the uncertainty surrounding our future brewing operations.

'Our retail business performance has started well, although we are only a short way into the new financial year. Sales in the seven weeks to 20 May are up 10.7%, with strong like for like growth.

The resolution of our future brewing activities, together with the planned sale of the brewery site, which will unlock a substantial amount of capital over the next few years, will enable us to make a step change in the financial performance of the business."

Source: preliminary results, 23 May 2006

Chief executive

Stephen Goodyear

Key directors

Chairman: John Young
Deputy chairman: James Young
Finance director: Peter Whitehead
Retail director: Patrick Dardis
Company secretary: Christopher Sandalwood
Information services director: Torquil Sligo-Young

Contact

The Ram Brewery
Wandsworth
London
SW18 4JD

Tel: 020 8875 7000
Fax: 020 8875 7100

E-mail:
Website: http://www.youngs.co.uk